Geographical Information Services (GIS)
The City of Aiken GIS division provides mapping and consulting to all City of Aiken Departments, Aiken County Planning and Development and Lower Savannah Council of Governments, as well as to different vendors working with the City of Aiken like Woolpert, The Palmetto Conservation Foundation and the Friends of Hopelands.
The division is also responsible for the management of the citywide utility mapping project. This project has been ongoing since 1997 as funding has been appropriated.
What is GIS?
Geography is information about the earth’s surface and the objects found on it, as well as a framework for organizing knowledge. GIS is a technology that manages, analyzes and disseminates geographic knowledge.
Geography isn’t just an academic subject, it’s a serious discipline with multibillion dollar implications for businesses and governments.
Choosing sites, targeting market segments, planning distribution networks, responding to emergencies and redrawing county and city boundaries.
GIS links location to information such as people to addresses, buildings to parcels or streets within a network. GIS layers that information to give you a better understanding of how it all interrelates. You can choose what layers to combine based you your purpose. For instance, say you are a developer and you want to know if city water is available to a site you wish to develop. You can map the area showing the parcel (s) involved and also map the water and/or sewer availability for that site. You can see where the nearest schools are….shopping….etc.
GIS is most often associated with maps. However, maps are only one of two ways a GIS can be used.
Database – GIS is a unique kind of database of the world. It is an information system for geography – a structured database that describes the world in geographic terms.
A database may contain parcel number, acerage, sq.ft. of buildings, voting districts, garbage routes, zoning, appraised value of land and structures, mailing addresses and property addresses.
Maps – A GIS is a set on intelligent maps and other views that show features and feature relationships on the earth’s surface. Maps can be used as windows into the database to support queries, analysis and editing of information.
GIS is also involved with the assigning, recording and mapping of addresses of all properties, occupied and vacant, within the incorporated limits….this information is used by Public Safety, emergency response teams, utility companies and of course the post office.
Identifying and mapping land uses to create the city’s comprehensive master plan.